fredbassett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fredbassett) wrote2013-08-04 01:38 pm
fredbassett) wrote2013-08-04 01:38 pm
Entry tags:
- fic,
- nick,
- nick/lester,
- slash,
- wolfverse
Fic, At the Sign of the George and Dragon, Nick/Lester, 12
Title : At the Sign of the George and Dragon
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Nick/Lester
Disclaimer : Not mine no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 1,700
Summary : It’s close to a full moon and Lester feels the need for food and exercise, in that order.
A/N : Set in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
knitekat's wonderful wolf-verse, ‘Under the Moonlight’ and written for her birthday. Have a great day, kitty cat. The icon I’m using here was made by talliw.
“I’ll give you special dispensation to finish that report in the morning.”
Nick looked up, glanced at the clock on the wall and allowed his expression to register surprise that Lester was out of his beloved office at only 6.30 in the evening, looking like he was ready to leave the ARC rather than having to be dragged out under protest several hours later.
“What’s brought on this unexpected act of largesse?” Nick asked whilst quickly saving the document he’d been working on and shutting down his computer before his lover had a chance to change his mind. Nick had long since learned not to kick a gift horse in the teeth where Lester’s working hours were concerned.
“I thought we could maybe have a meal out and then go for a walk. It’s been a long, hot day.”
Nick smiled. What his lover really meant was that it was close to the full moon and he actually wanted to run, not walk, but while there were other people still in the building Lester could hardly be more explicit.
* * * * *
Their favourite haunt on warm summer evenings was a pub called the George and Dragon, a square, brick-built edifice with mock-Tudor beams and an excellent lunchtime and evening menu, situated on the edge of Lester’s favourite stretch of woodland. The landlord knew them well and the chef had a talent for cooking steaks just the way Lester liked them – seared on the outside, warm and juicy red on the inside. Whilst Nick had no objection to red meat, he did prefer his food cooked slightly longer than the method he’d heard one of the soldiers refer to as wiping its arse and slapping it on the plate, which was only a slight exaggeration in Lester’s case.
Despite the warm evening, the secluded garden at the rear of the pub was quiet. Two people were sitting under one of the large umbrellas in one corner, a baby in a carry-cot on the grass next to them. Sprawled out beside the baby was a large, black and white ex-racing greyhound called Brian. The dog was well known to Nick and Lester as he had been adopted from Holly Hedge, an animal sanctuary that they both supported. Brian, in common with the vast majority of his breed, was more than happy to lay full length on the short grass in the pub’s garden, enjoying the sun and doing absolutely nothing, not even when the pub dog, a small bundle of white energy that occasionally answered to the name of Scrappy, clambered all over him in a vain attempt to provoke a game of chase.
Nick and Lester exchanged a few words with Brian’s owners, a young couple who lived locally, and then settled down in a corner of the spacious garden, taking advantage of the shade provided by a large beech tree. Two pints of beer and a bag of crisps were already taking the edge off the irritations of the day. In the time they’d been together, they’d both got better at leaving the stresses of the day behind once they’d driven out of the spacious confines of the Anomaly Research Centre.
It had actually been a reasonably quiet week where rips in time had been concerned. The worst they’d had to deal with was a long, hot drive into Northamptonshire to stake out an anomaly in a railway tunnel that had disgorged nothing more threatening than a large quantity of muddy water and some unfortunate trilobites. As anomaly shouts go, that one had been relatively uneventful, apart from the effect on the railway timetables and, as Connor had cheerfully remarked, they were usually rubbish anyway, even without prehistoric interference.
The food was as excellent as ever. Nick watched as Lester rapidly devoured a 12 ounce steak – so rare it should have been on the threatened species list – a large mound of chips, a pile of onion rings, two grilled tomatoes, a fried egg, several large mushooms and a separate dish of fresh, minted peas. He’d finished before Nick was even halfway through his own, more modest meal and had started to cast longing looks in the direction of Nick’s chips.
Nick rolled his eyes. “You’ll get fat,” he remarked, mounting a half-hearted defence of what was left on his plate.
“Do I look fat?” Lester challenged as his fork flashed out to acquire an onion ring and a large chip.
Even when subjected to the most critical of examinations, Nick had to admit that his lover did not look fat. Released from his office uniform of impeccably tailored suits and brightly-coloured ties, Lester was wearing a dark green teeshirt, shapeless from too many washes and a pair of very faded black jeans. The teeshirt only partially disguised a lean body carrying no spare fat. Lester’s light frame concealed whipcord muscle and a bewilderingly fast turn of speed should he decide to employ it. Nick had long since stopped entertaining any idea of beating Lester on a squash court and during the time they spent in the countryside, Nick often had trouble keeping up with him, even when Lester wasn’t in wolf-form.
With a look of triumph, Lester promptly speared some more chips. Nick ate another few mouthfuls of steak and then finally admitted defeat, as he usually did at the size of the meals served up in the George.
“Waste is a sin,” Lester declared, pulling the plate towards him and proceeding to demolish the remains of Nick’s meal before Scrappy the Jack Russell had time to even give the leftovers a wistful glance.
“Dessert?” The landlady asked, as she cleared away their plates.
“Temptress,” Nick groaned. “I’ll be working this lot off for a week, thanks, Diane.”
“Chocolate fudge brownie and ice cream,” Lester declared. “And you’d better bring a second spoon, just in case. I know what gets like when he’s in the presence of that much chocolate.”
“You can always walk it off later.”
“We’ll have to,” Nick said doing his best to forget the amount of calories he’d just consumed.
Or to be quite precise, he’d walk and Lester would run.
* * * * *
The shadows of evening were drawing in, shrouding the forest in darkness. The majority of the dog-walkers had made their way home or back to their cars and all Lester could sense around him – apart from his lover – were the full-time inhabitants of the woods, most of which were keen to stay out of his way as he prowled through the trees.
Nick would walk slowly along one of the main trails to the lake, while Lester revelled in the feeling of freedom that came from being in his wolf-form. He was the apex predator in a land that had known the absolute domination of man for far too long. Cars were the main predators these days, even in parts of the world where hunting living creatures for sport was still legal. Lester had never understood the attraction of killing for fun rather than to fill your stomach, and was still completely baffled by the fishermen who sat for hours by the banks of the lake only to throw back anything they caught at the end of the day.
Lester started to pick up his pace, moving smoothly into a loping run that he could keep up for hours if necessary. His long stride covered the ground easily and he was enjoying the freedom to run at will, leaping easily over fallen trees and piles of brushwood. The undergrowth was dense in places, but Lester knew every trail and animal track in the forest, taking him around the densest patches of bramble as he ran on, away from roads and away from people.
He ran without thought, letting scent become his world. In a small clearing, deep in the middle of one the densest areas of the forest, Lester came to a halt and threw himself down on the grass, giving in to an urge to scratch his back on the summer-hardened ground. He ended up wriggling like a cub, paddling his paws in the air, his jaws lolling open, secure in the knowledge that no one – not even Nick – was near enough to witness him giving in to the urge to have a damn good scratch.
When he finally sprang back upright, Lester shook himself, feeling grass and twigs fall from his thick, heavy coat. Dusk had given way to full dark now and Nick would have reached the lake, but if he broke into a full run, stretching his legs properly, Lester knew he’d be at his lover’s side in a matter of minutes.
Around him a light breeze had picked up, dispelling the heat of the day and bringing with it fresher, cooler air, bringing with it something else as well… the scent of prey.
Lester’s nostrils flared and he stiffened, head titled on one side to listen for the sound of any movement.
A rustle amongst the dry grasses and fallen leaves told him exactly where to look.
Pale moonlight filtered down through the trees and illuminated a pair of wide, dark eyes staring at him like a rabbit transfixed by a stoat. But the creature was bigger than any rabbit.
A young fawn, a few weeks old at most, stood on trembling legs. It had strayed too far from its dam and was now about to learn that the world could be a terrifying place. Lester’s hunting instinct rose unbidden and he felt his muscles tense as he readied himself to spring.
He could taste the fawn’s fear on the wind.
Lester ran in the woods but he’d never hunted there before, not wanting to start the sort of local furore that would inevitably follow the discovery of any sort of animal kill.
The fawn continued to stare at him out of long-lashed eyes that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Disney cartoon.
Lester took a pace forward and allowed a low, rumbling growl to rise up in his throat.
The fawn turned and fled.
It had learnt that predators were to be feared. That was what mattered.
Lester shook himself lazily and then started off at a trot followed quickly by a fast run, as he made his way through the darkened woods to the lake.
There was a good reason why he always stuffed himself full of food at the George and Dragon this close to a full moon. He was not an animal and he would not be ruled by instinct.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Nick/Lester
Disclaimer : Not mine no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 1,700
Summary : It’s close to a full moon and Lester feels the need for food and exercise, in that order.
A/N : Set in
knitekat's wonderful wolf-verse, ‘Under the Moonlight’ and written for her birthday. Have a great day, kitty cat. The icon I’m using here was made by talliw.“I’ll give you special dispensation to finish that report in the morning.”
Nick looked up, glanced at the clock on the wall and allowed his expression to register surprise that Lester was out of his beloved office at only 6.30 in the evening, looking like he was ready to leave the ARC rather than having to be dragged out under protest several hours later.
“What’s brought on this unexpected act of largesse?” Nick asked whilst quickly saving the document he’d been working on and shutting down his computer before his lover had a chance to change his mind. Nick had long since learned not to kick a gift horse in the teeth where Lester’s working hours were concerned.
“I thought we could maybe have a meal out and then go for a walk. It’s been a long, hot day.”
Nick smiled. What his lover really meant was that it was close to the full moon and he actually wanted to run, not walk, but while there were other people still in the building Lester could hardly be more explicit.
* * * * *
Their favourite haunt on warm summer evenings was a pub called the George and Dragon, a square, brick-built edifice with mock-Tudor beams and an excellent lunchtime and evening menu, situated on the edge of Lester’s favourite stretch of woodland. The landlord knew them well and the chef had a talent for cooking steaks just the way Lester liked them – seared on the outside, warm and juicy red on the inside. Whilst Nick had no objection to red meat, he did prefer his food cooked slightly longer than the method he’d heard one of the soldiers refer to as wiping its arse and slapping it on the plate, which was only a slight exaggeration in Lester’s case.
Despite the warm evening, the secluded garden at the rear of the pub was quiet. Two people were sitting under one of the large umbrellas in one corner, a baby in a carry-cot on the grass next to them. Sprawled out beside the baby was a large, black and white ex-racing greyhound called Brian. The dog was well known to Nick and Lester as he had been adopted from Holly Hedge, an animal sanctuary that they both supported. Brian, in common with the vast majority of his breed, was more than happy to lay full length on the short grass in the pub’s garden, enjoying the sun and doing absolutely nothing, not even when the pub dog, a small bundle of white energy that occasionally answered to the name of Scrappy, clambered all over him in a vain attempt to provoke a game of chase.
Nick and Lester exchanged a few words with Brian’s owners, a young couple who lived locally, and then settled down in a corner of the spacious garden, taking advantage of the shade provided by a large beech tree. Two pints of beer and a bag of crisps were already taking the edge off the irritations of the day. In the time they’d been together, they’d both got better at leaving the stresses of the day behind once they’d driven out of the spacious confines of the Anomaly Research Centre.
It had actually been a reasonably quiet week where rips in time had been concerned. The worst they’d had to deal with was a long, hot drive into Northamptonshire to stake out an anomaly in a railway tunnel that had disgorged nothing more threatening than a large quantity of muddy water and some unfortunate trilobites. As anomaly shouts go, that one had been relatively uneventful, apart from the effect on the railway timetables and, as Connor had cheerfully remarked, they were usually rubbish anyway, even without prehistoric interference.
The food was as excellent as ever. Nick watched as Lester rapidly devoured a 12 ounce steak – so rare it should have been on the threatened species list – a large mound of chips, a pile of onion rings, two grilled tomatoes, a fried egg, several large mushooms and a separate dish of fresh, minted peas. He’d finished before Nick was even halfway through his own, more modest meal and had started to cast longing looks in the direction of Nick’s chips.
Nick rolled his eyes. “You’ll get fat,” he remarked, mounting a half-hearted defence of what was left on his plate.
“Do I look fat?” Lester challenged as his fork flashed out to acquire an onion ring and a large chip.
Even when subjected to the most critical of examinations, Nick had to admit that his lover did not look fat. Released from his office uniform of impeccably tailored suits and brightly-coloured ties, Lester was wearing a dark green teeshirt, shapeless from too many washes and a pair of very faded black jeans. The teeshirt only partially disguised a lean body carrying no spare fat. Lester’s light frame concealed whipcord muscle and a bewilderingly fast turn of speed should he decide to employ it. Nick had long since stopped entertaining any idea of beating Lester on a squash court and during the time they spent in the countryside, Nick often had trouble keeping up with him, even when Lester wasn’t in wolf-form.
With a look of triumph, Lester promptly speared some more chips. Nick ate another few mouthfuls of steak and then finally admitted defeat, as he usually did at the size of the meals served up in the George.
“Waste is a sin,” Lester declared, pulling the plate towards him and proceeding to demolish the remains of Nick’s meal before Scrappy the Jack Russell had time to even give the leftovers a wistful glance.
“Dessert?” The landlady asked, as she cleared away their plates.
“Temptress,” Nick groaned. “I’ll be working this lot off for a week, thanks, Diane.”
“Chocolate fudge brownie and ice cream,” Lester declared. “And you’d better bring a second spoon, just in case. I know what gets like when he’s in the presence of that much chocolate.”
“You can always walk it off later.”
“We’ll have to,” Nick said doing his best to forget the amount of calories he’d just consumed.
Or to be quite precise, he’d walk and Lester would run.
* * * * *
The shadows of evening were drawing in, shrouding the forest in darkness. The majority of the dog-walkers had made their way home or back to their cars and all Lester could sense around him – apart from his lover – were the full-time inhabitants of the woods, most of which were keen to stay out of his way as he prowled through the trees.
Nick would walk slowly along one of the main trails to the lake, while Lester revelled in the feeling of freedom that came from being in his wolf-form. He was the apex predator in a land that had known the absolute domination of man for far too long. Cars were the main predators these days, even in parts of the world where hunting living creatures for sport was still legal. Lester had never understood the attraction of killing for fun rather than to fill your stomach, and was still completely baffled by the fishermen who sat for hours by the banks of the lake only to throw back anything they caught at the end of the day.
Lester started to pick up his pace, moving smoothly into a loping run that he could keep up for hours if necessary. His long stride covered the ground easily and he was enjoying the freedom to run at will, leaping easily over fallen trees and piles of brushwood. The undergrowth was dense in places, but Lester knew every trail and animal track in the forest, taking him around the densest patches of bramble as he ran on, away from roads and away from people.
He ran without thought, letting scent become his world. In a small clearing, deep in the middle of one the densest areas of the forest, Lester came to a halt and threw himself down on the grass, giving in to an urge to scratch his back on the summer-hardened ground. He ended up wriggling like a cub, paddling his paws in the air, his jaws lolling open, secure in the knowledge that no one – not even Nick – was near enough to witness him giving in to the urge to have a damn good scratch.
When he finally sprang back upright, Lester shook himself, feeling grass and twigs fall from his thick, heavy coat. Dusk had given way to full dark now and Nick would have reached the lake, but if he broke into a full run, stretching his legs properly, Lester knew he’d be at his lover’s side in a matter of minutes.
Around him a light breeze had picked up, dispelling the heat of the day and bringing with it fresher, cooler air, bringing with it something else as well… the scent of prey.
Lester’s nostrils flared and he stiffened, head titled on one side to listen for the sound of any movement.
A rustle amongst the dry grasses and fallen leaves told him exactly where to look.
Pale moonlight filtered down through the trees and illuminated a pair of wide, dark eyes staring at him like a rabbit transfixed by a stoat. But the creature was bigger than any rabbit.
A young fawn, a few weeks old at most, stood on trembling legs. It had strayed too far from its dam and was now about to learn that the world could be a terrifying place. Lester’s hunting instinct rose unbidden and he felt his muscles tense as he readied himself to spring.
He could taste the fawn’s fear on the wind.
Lester ran in the woods but he’d never hunted there before, not wanting to start the sort of local furore that would inevitably follow the discovery of any sort of animal kill.
The fawn continued to stare at him out of long-lashed eyes that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Disney cartoon.
Lester took a pace forward and allowed a low, rumbling growl to rise up in his throat.
The fawn turned and fled.
It had learnt that predators were to be feared. That was what mattered.
Lester shook himself lazily and then started off at a trot followed quickly by a fast run, as he made his way through the darkened woods to the lake.
There was a good reason why he always stuffed himself full of food at the George and Dragon this close to a full moon. He was not an animal and he would not be ruled by instinct.